God's Eyes Must Be Blue
by KohakuNoRamen
Summary: To endure the torment of others, one must enjoy pain. A story of a young man's struggle to cope with his place in life. The tale of the Jailer of Midland.
1. Of Blue, of Death, of Iron

Disclaimer: I do not own Berserk though I'd have loved to take credit!  
  
~Author's Note~ My friend was writing a Berserk fanfic so I felt I wanted to as well. However, I have an eternal mental block. Then she said: "I thought of another fanfic idea! The thoughts of the Jailer!" Well... I stole it. She let me though! She gave me no other info than that so the rest is all me!  
  
~God's Eyes Must Be Blue~  
By: Kohaku no Ramen  
  
"You! Boy!"  
  
I flinched at the voice of the jailer. It was coarse and it bore at my mind like a chisel. "Y-yes?" I managed to mumble loud enough for him to hear.  
  
"I need you're help with this!"  
  
My body convulsed with the sudden chill. If I didn't need a job to survive, I would have avoided this place with every sinewy strand of my being. It was unavoidable. Perhaps in time I'll grow accustomed to the atmosphere. The stench of death and the groans of men who have far more to tell than they will ever again be allowed... Perhaps I'll be comforted by it someday. Things that are consistent in one's life usually bring comfort, don't they? I bit my tongue at the thought and I felt light headed. Comforted by blood, by dying? How could somebody ever live in that fashion?  
  
"Stop wasting time you coward!"  
  
"Yes!" I yelped, thrust from my thoughts into the real world. This world where I have to draw the blood of men to keep my own flowing within my veins. The veins under this rough, swarthy skin that houses my innards. I wonder if mine look like all the others'?  
  
"You hold down his head." The jailer growled, barely noting my presence.  
  
I nodded solemnly and looked upon the face of the victim. The man wasn't a handsome one. His nose was large and almost flat against his face. His eyes were blue though. Blue eyes have always fascinated me. I'm almost jealous of them. They seem to hold so much life and purity, so much mystery in that color. The color of the sky... God's eyes must be blue. A leather band was already holding his face against the cold slab that had been positioned horizontally. It ran through his open mouth, pinning back his tongue. He moaned pitifully, staring at me with those wonderful eyes. It took a little while, but I managed to wrench my eyes from that stare at length. I could never look at a prisoner as we exacted his punishment.  
  
I put my hands against his round face, pushing them towards each other as to draw a firm grip from my thin, lanky hands. I closed my eyes and inhaled. I could hear the fire burning about 50 feet away. It snapped and crackled as it lapped at the iron. Ah, iron. Our civilization is so dependant on that material. Even steel is born of it, uselessly waiting in limbo to be born as it's drawn from the simple material. It is used for pots, for children's play things... for armor... for war... for the torment of average people. It could very well be I'd fall victim one day to that iron.  
  
I could hear the jailer's heavy footsteps as he went to that furnace. I held fast to the bulging face of the prisoner as he whipped his head like an animal as he tried to free himself. I don't know why they always do that. I'm sure their conscious mind is aware of the bindings, of the guards. I am so very curious as to why they writhe like this, as a spider on its back, only able to wait as it dies slowly, starving. As we evolve, we don't really become more intelligent, we just become able to mask this instinct.  
  
My fingers dug into the flesh of the man as I smelt the burning and I heard his muffled calls. The screams reduced to mutterings. I swallowed as I felt myself beginning to perspire. The large, sickening beads of sweat traced along my face and matted my dark hair. I clenched my jaw shut and my nostrils flared. I really did wish they hadn't. The odor was ghastly.  
  
My mind wandered. It was a pitiful tactic, I'm aware. As a fifteen year old I know I shouldn't be so afraid of the dungeons. These caves that burn with fires not just from the furnaces. The fire of hatred, of that animalistic need to kill, to destroy, to survive. I couldn't take that fire. It burned my eyes and the smoke suffocated me. I dwell on other things, go to another place. Usually they were memories. My imagination wasn't very strong.  
  
I don't know how much time had passed before screams threw a rock into the serene lake of my pensiveness. As I floated from my subconscious mind, I became aware of my hands. They were still pressed against flesh, but it had become slick. Not the sticky wetness from transudation as I was so accustomed to. It was warm and smooth. It was somewhat pleasant as I sifted my fingers, allowing it to trickle between them. It's funny how senses return to you only one at a time. It wasn't until the initial revelry of the feeling that I heard the sounds. The gurgling calls. I've heard it only a few times before. My eyes opened against my will. My hateful black eyes. The man's face was covered in red. Red. Red. That was all I could see. I couldn't even distinguish his ugly nose. I was barely aware of the doctor pronouncing him as he was. I fell away, crawling like a cockroach away from the scene. I put my hands over my mouth and leaned forward. My phalanges were caked with blood and dirt, and now with my own bodily fluids. My shoulders shook and I sent another waterfall of putrid, rotting food and acid into my hands. The other guards laughed at me. My pants were wet. I would have been humiliated if I weren't so distraught.  
  
For the first time in my short life, a man had died in my hands. 


	2. Facination

~God's Eyes Must Be Blue~  
Chapter 2: Fascination  
By: Kohaku no Ramen  
  
~Author's Note~ Erm... Well there is a whole lot of ranting in this, but it makes sense if you think about it. The purpose of this story is to create the mental path he took to be able to sustain some form of sanity by the time Griffith came under his wing. There tends to b ranting when a human uses a form of dissociation as a defense mechanism. Bear with me!  
  
I awoke on the filthy stone floor the next morning. My body hurt. I touched my lip with the back of my dirtied hand, suspecting the others beat me after I fainted. If there was blood, it had long since dried and any scabbing was indiscernible beneath my begriming glove.  
  
I used my hands to force my worn body into an upright position and groaned. There was a dull twinge of pain in my shoulder. That's what comes of sleeping on that dreary grey floor, I suppose. I rubbed it with the hand opposite and, the black film covering it passing onto my brown shirt.  
  
The motion was forced to cease as I remembered what happened. Slowly, gingerly, I turned my eyes upward. The base... the slab... an arm. They hadn't bothered to take his body away. I tensed as nausea passed its warm, sweating hand through me. My legs hardly held fast as I tried to stand. It took several bruises before I was able to successfully put my weight on my feet, my legs regained the strength lost in distressed slumber.  
  
His corpse had to be covered. Even a criminal deserves to rest peacefully. No crime should keep a soul from crossing over comfortably. I don't think so at least. I glanced once again at him. It was so strange. I tried to free myself from the gaze, but I couldn't. The body intrigued me.  
  
The face I thought was fat when I fears beheld it had expanded to obesity. The entire form was inflated. The color had passed from fleshy beige to yellow and was now continuing to morph into a hue of purple. Why did it change like this? I've seen the canvas bags that held dead men. I've even beared witness to the organs they removed from victims. But neither was as interesting as the full frame of the decaying.  
  
My eyes quivered as I scanned over the mass, some of it stained black with blood and death bile. I didn't feel sick this time, yet my stomach still churned. What was this emotion? Something I hadn't experienced since beginning my work here. Elation. Inquiry. I wanted to touch it. How strange it must feel! My heart fluttered with curiosity. My head began throbbing, but not in pain. It was occulting the mad currents of wonder that it sent through me, giving me a chill. I reached forward with my trembling hand.  
  
One touch couldn't hurt. It was all in the name of exploration, a human wish to know.  
  
Inches away, I hesitated. A flash of doubt seared my skull, burning my ears. I don't know why I hated myself in those few seconds. I hated my sickly body, my black eyes, my sudden fascination. "It was perverse to think these things," I scolded. "You cannot touch a dead man, let him be."  
  
The feeling faded quickly. I was desecrating nothing. You can only sin by defiling what is holey. What is holy about a soulless body? An empty shell? It was the proof he once lived, but was no herald to the man he was. I wonder what he did, who he was. He would so be forgotten, though, and the worms would mangle and destroy the meat. What could my fingers wreak upon this cadaver that compares to that?  
  
I drew my hand away without touching. I heard the laughs of the fellow dungeon-men. My body stiffened and my widened eyes shifted about the room. My heart was racing. I felt frightened, a fear derived from shame that filled my spirit. It was as if those men were able to hear my thoughts, that they had come to punish me for my sinful musings. With a cry, I began to run. A stone found its way to the middle of my path and I fell, scraping the side of my face on the granite. I emitted a sound resembling a whimper, getting to my feet.  
  
The smell I had grown accustomed to now burned my eyes and my nose. The reek of the rotting prisoner, his blood, my blood. It was only amplified by the stench of urine and vomit that remained no my personage. I needed a bath. I grit my teeth and took my leave of that tomb.  
  
I felt I had shared a casket with that man. I envisioned myself upon that cold bed, contrasted by the burning of metal pressed, prodded, and impaled with it. I screamed and threw my hands over my head as if that were a sign to force the image from my mind.  
  
He was free now, though. That must be comforting to those that knew him, those that he left behind.  
  
I passed the men walking to the place from whence I'd just come. They yelled at me, shielding themselves as I barreled down the corridor. I didn't care. I just wanted to clean myself.  
  
To me, it took far to long to reach the washroom we were allowed to use. It was a wooden confinement built around a well. I slammed the door as I stumbled in and struggled to light the lamp. It was accomplished, at length, and I tripped over the dented tin basin on my way to the well.  
  
I drew up the water and, bucketful after bucketful, I filled it nearly all the way. The water wasn't clean enough to drink, but it served its purpose here well enough. It served my purpose well enough.  
  
I took off my loose leather shoes with my feet as I lifted the tunic over my head. Upon noticing the ease of this multi-task, I realized I needed new shoes. The thought was a relief. I didn't have the burning thoughts, the self-hatred, for that moment. Getting out of my soiled pants was a relief, a much needed pleasantry.  
  
I sat in the water, rubbing my hands tighter furiously to peel away the caked on feculence of blood and dust. The water soon grew brown as the muck was transferred to it. I was forced to get out and change the water.  
  
I knelt in the fresh set with my hands against the bottom. I stared at myself. I know that the reflection was distorted, but I felt it could be no more hideous in reality. Hair hung in the creature's visage. Sticking to that rough, peasant's skin. A portion of the cleansing liquid I was in dripped from the slick tresses. The pointed crooked nose that adorned the monstrous face. I stared back at my own deep-set, black eyes, shining with fear and disappointment. It was detestable.  
  
I wonder if a soul looks like a reflection. The psyche of a man is so similar to that image. It is calm at one moment, treacherous the next. It is warped and shattered by the smallest pebble, the most miniscule drop of water. Does my soul has a face. Or is it just a shapeless entity, a concept more than a tangible thing?  
  
As I pondered, a shadow grew beside the image for which I held such aversion. The round shape formed lips. They were small, thick but spanning very little lengthwise. When I saw a bulbous nose take shape, I became ill again. When blue eyes stared back, I shrieked. I fell out of the basin, spilling the water that extinguished the lamp on the floor. I got to my knees and prayed, crying as I did so.  
  
"Forgive me! Oh god, forgive me! Haunt me no longer I beg of you!" I called, not knowing if it was aloud or not. "I beg of you..." I added, my voice weakened by the torrents of tears. I fell forward, my hands over my head.  
  
Swiftly my stinking shirt was pressed to my skin once again and I left. I needed new clothes. I needed a new life. How could I last here forever? But I knew that was irrational. I was never going to leave this place. I'll forget this someday, won't I? I'll be able to put it from my mind. I swore to myself there that I would never again allow myself these feelings. Each of them ranging from the sickness, to the curiosity, to the guilt. I kept true to that. I did for the next 2 years. 


End file.
